the New 7Wonders of Nature: vote for Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy

Have you heard of the ‘new 7 Wonders of Nature‘ campaign?

The Bay of Fundy (Nova Scotia) is Canada’s only finalist among the twenty-eight vying for recognition as one of the new 7 Wonders of Nature. If you have never seen the Bay of Fundy – I have to tell you that you are missing something unique and incredible – and you really must include it in your vacation plans.

We have the highest tides in the world here, five to ten times higher than anywhere else in the world! Did you know that the amount of water in one tide cycle that comes in and out of the Bay of Fundy is enough to fill and empty the Grand Canyon? Imagine it! The tide can go from high to low in only six hours and thirteen minutes! And it cycles twice a day.

Twelve different species of whales live in the Bay of Fundy. Ever go whale watching? If you come to Nova Scotia to see the Bay of Fundy you shouldn’t leave out a good whale watching expedition.

Fossil discoveries made here have surpassed those in other areas of the world. This and other amazing facts which you really must read, can be found here: http://www.votemyfundy.com/about-bay-of-fundy/

I am always in awe over the Bay since I love everything about the ocean — the tides, the salty and seaweed smell, the power, its aquatic life. The ocean is my healing place. It is restorative, terrifyingly wondrous, my place to sense the power of God like in no other way.

Please, I would appreciate it if you would go to http://www.votemyfundy.com and place your vote for the Bay of Fundy to become one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. Voting time ends November 11. Once you’ve done that, make plans to come to Nova Scotia to experience the wonder and beauty and awe of an amazing wonder of nature. Then you’ll see why I love it here. 🙂

What wonderful stories do you have to tell about this amazing wonder of Nature, or perhaps any others of the 28 finalists?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Book Giveaway reminder

This short post is a friendly reminder of the book giveaway I’m offering on November 12, courtesy of Red Deer Press.

Please refer to my October 22 post and read my review of A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk – an amazing story written by Jan L. Coates.

Then, following my October 28 interview with Jan, you have the opportunity to win a copy of A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk by leaving a comment.

Please be sure to let others know about this, too, and get the word out about this heralded novel. Tweet about it, mention it on Facebook and in your own blog .. use your imagination to get the word out there! I know Jan will appreciate the publicity for Jacob. Don’t know who Jacob is? Read my blog October 22 and October 28 posts. 😉

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Learning how to split in half and still keep one’s sanity

Wow! Time is certainly travelling along, isn’t it? It has been too long since my last post, so I will try to remedy that.

My life has been split in half. So has my sister’s. Therefore, so have our husbands’ and all else connected to our private existence.

Life has changed a lot, being a full-time part-time caregiver has affected my life drastically. With my sister, I am alternating weeks living with our dad (which makes it part-time), but we are going to be doing this for … who knows how long? (which makes it full-time) Even when I’m not on my ‘shift’ I’m still sort of on-call – if my sister phones and needs support or information or whatever. She does the same for me. That’s how we have it set up for each other and so far it is working out.

Recently, we were approved for a few hours respite each week, which is a blessing. A huge blessing. We were getting very weary, it’s a mental thing — always having to be alert to where, what, when — so getting a break is an assist to retaining sanity. Respite is so new to us that it is taking a little time to work out the glitches, and I find it hard turning things over to someone else even for a few hours. But, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it and need it.

Can anyone relate to any of what I’m sharing?

When I get home from my week on duty, I lose at least one day from total weariness. Being on constant alert mode is exhausting, and even feeling tired there it really hits when getting home and being able to let my guard down. whew! I don’t know how people do this for years, and not being able to alternate weeks. Perhaps it’s a little different having one’s own home to maintain as well, but either way … it is taxing. Even so, it is an honour and a blessing to be able to do this for one’s loved one, regardless of the difficulty as conditions worsen. Further to that, it’s not really understood that there is even a problem. Challenging.

So, how do we do it? To be honest, The Lord is our Strength. Prayer, talking to other people who understand, getting those little blocks of time out of the house or just being able to read or work at a hobby while a nap is happening .. usually not our own 🙂 .. all are very important in order to keep one’s sanity. Another top thing is that our families are understanding and very supportive in this. I doubt that we could do it otherwise. So, really .. the wheel that turns it all is LOVE.

I originally set up this blog to track my journey in writing. Why do my journeys seem to always have side roads? Do the sidetracks add to the well from which stories come? I’m hoping so. The novel I got well underway in 2010’s NaNoWriMo (refer to https://lynnadavidson.wordpress.com/nanowrimo-updates-2010/) has not been altered one bit since. Do I try to work more on it in NaNo 2011? I really want to finish it instead of starting something new yet. My hesitation is because I fear attempting NaNo this year would set me up for an incomplete. But gosh! If I keep putting it off I could be years .. or never! ..getting back to it.

How do people write, sometimes their best work, during times of stress?

It seems I still have much to learn about splitting my life in half while keeping hold of some measure of my established interests — and sanity.

Do you have a similar story to tell? How did or do you manage it?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Are you a ringer? or a leaner?

Have you ever played horseshoes? It’s a fun game of skill.

My dad and I have been playing horseshoes a little this Summer (now turned Autumn) and – although we certainly aren’t the greatest at it – we have lots of laughs.

Two pits are prepared, into each is driven a stake forty-two feet from the other. From beside one pit the players throw two horseshoes each, in turn, trying to get a ringer (shoe around stake) for five points, a leaner for three points, or within a horseshoe width for one point. Then the players walk to the other end, add up their points and pitch the shoes to the other pit. Eventually, a total of 21 points wins.

Take a look at the image here. This was amazing!

Both the ringer and the leaner are mine! Dad got one shoe close enough for a point, the other just a little too far out. This was such a great toss that we had to capture it because I thought no one would believe it. Of course, we have not been able to repeat this exactly again. In fact, when we get a point it’s occasion to cheer. 🙂 That’s right, we won’t be asked to join a team any time soon, but, as I said, we have fun. It’s a good way to get exercise, too.

Looking at this picture I began wondering about it in relation to life.
A ringer — do you hit your mark? Do you reach your goal?
A leaner — do you nearly get there, not quite where you want to be but enough so that you can say you did it?
Close — the old saying is, “close only counts in horseshoes.” Do you get nearly there and then decide this is close enough?
Not quite there — do you think, “well at least I tried”?

I wonder what my own attitude has been. I can go many ways with this but if I relate it to writing I know I have not made that ringer. I’m not sure I even have a leaner, either. But I may be close, although for me it’s not close enough yet. And I have had many days of thinking, “well, at least I’m trying”, but if I am truly going to succeed I know I have yet to develop my skill.

The secret, the trick, is to never quit, never give up. In writing there are so many, many ways to express one’s ideas and imaginings, many places to apply one’s talent, many word avenues to travel. And one has to learn how to pitch, how to lean in, how to get close enough so as to eventually succeed.

Am I there yet? No. But I am still trying, still in the game, even with all of life’s sidelines and stressors and detours.

How about you? Are you a ringer? a leaner?
Are you close? or not quite there yet?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Crazy bag (bat?) lady!

“Do you have a bat on your wall?!”

Tuesday morning I was sitting in the shop talking with my hairdresser while waiting for my cab. Squinting, I said, “Is that a bat? or .. what is that!” He turned to look in the direction I was indicating. “I do have a bat on my wall!”

“May I have it?”

He turned and looked at me hesitantly, if not a little surprised.

“I would like to take it home and release it at my house. I really like bats,” I explained, “and I don’t like mosquitoes. I haven’t seen a bat around all Summer.”

Satisfied with my explanation, he immediately began looking around, “What will I catch it with?” Grabbing a small towel he climbed onto the chair that was conveniently there, then reaching up he neatly and quickly covered the little brown bat with the towel. Carefully wrapping it securely, he stepped down and picked up a plastic grocery bag. After he gently placed the towel into the bag we tied off the top to be sure its contents stayed inside during its relocation journey. Then my cab pulled up.

Settling the bag carefully on my lap, I began chuckling as we drove along. clickclickclickclickclickclick

“Do you hear that?” I asked the driver.
He looked over, “What?” His radio music was quite loud.
“Do you hear that clicking?”
He turned the radio down and listened. “Yeaaaahhh?”
“It’s a bat.”
“A what?”
“A bat. I have a little brown bat in this bag.”
“Ooookaaaaaaaaayyyy.” The look on his face was priceless.
“Does that bother you? Is it a problem?” I asked him.
“Oh, no, … it’s not a problem.” He kept glancing over at the bag.
I explained what had just occurred and that I was taking the bat home. “I think it’s a fair trade. He didn’t want the bat in his house, I want it outside mine.”

The driver agreed it seemed fair. Then the conversation began, mostly about bats. He told me that one of the cab drivers got into her vehicle one morning and there was a bat in it. He said, “As soon as she knew the bat was in her cab – she wasn’t!” We laughed.

The drive was less than twenty minutes but it didn’t take long for the bat to find its way out of the towel. He crawled around in the bag, clicking, which I believe was his sonar .. trying to find distance so that he knew it was an opening to freedom. I checked the bag to be sure I had not mistakenly been given one with a hole in it. Even though I like little brown bats I don’t think I would appreciate one crawling on me.

After the cab left my yard I took the bat-in-a-bag up onto a little hill beside my house. Setting the bag down beside the trees I untied the top, stepped back and waited. It took maybe twenty seconds for the bat to find the way out. Soon his little head popped up over the edge and with a flurry of fast little bat wings … zip! zoom! … he was gone, silently flying away between the trees.

When I told my girls about my fun experience their teasing remarks varied: ‘weird yet cool’, ‘not cool’, ‘crazy bag lady’, ‘strange’, ‘way to preserve wildlife’, ‘odd’. 🙂 I told one daughter that I enjoy doing the odd thing once in awhile. She replied, “Well, that was it then.”

And you know, she was right. That was it … for this week. 🙂

PS
Would you believe … just as I finished writing the above my husband called to me, “There’s a bat in the house!” He had seen one flying around but lost sight of it, so we went looking. Sure enough, from the living-room he saw a little brown bat hanging upside down from the ceiling in the adjoining room. Hilarious!

I grabbed a towel … and released the little guy into our yard. Again. Could it have been the same one?

How marvellous is that! 😉

What weird and wonderful thing have you done lately?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Do you use a pen name? Here are famous ones.

Pen names.

I got thinking about this strange name game that writers employ. Which famous writers are better known by their pen names? Why did they adopt a different name? I decided to do a search to see what fascinating things I could find out about famous writers – or rather, their famous pen names.

There are many more, but here is a list of what I found, with the pen name mentioned first:

Acton Bell was Anne Bronte
Anatole France was Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
Andre Maurois was Emile Herzog
Angela Knight is Julie Woodcock
Anne Rice was born Howard Allen O’Brien
Ann Landers was Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer
Artemus Ward was Charles Farrar Browne
Boz was an early pen name for Charles Dickens
Clive Hamilton and N.W. Clerk were both pseudonyms C.S. Lewis used
Currer Bell was Charlotte Bronte
Dr. Seuss was Theodor Seuss Geisel
Elia was Charles Lamb
Ellery Queen was Frederic Dannav and Manfred B. Lee
Ellis Bell was Emily Bronte
Ernst Ahlgren was Victoria Benedictsson
Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen was Brian O’Nolan
GBS was George Bernard Shaw
George Eliot was Mary Ann Evans
George Sand was Amantine (also spelled Amandine) Lucile Aurore Dupin later to become Baroness Dudevant
George Orwell was actually Eric Blair
Isak Dinesen was Karen Blixen
Irwin Shaw was Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff
J. D. Robb is Nora Roberts who was born Eleanor Marie Robertson (Nora Roberts is really her first pen name)
John le Carre was David Cornwell
Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
Lemony Snicket is Daniel Handler
Lewis Carroll was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Mark Twain was Samuel Langhorne Clemens and also Sieur Louis de Conte
Mary Westmachott was Agatha Christie
Maxim Gorkey was ALex Makimov Peshlov
Moliere was Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
O. Henry was William Sydney Porter
Orion was J. K. Chesterton
Pearl Grey was Zane Grey
Poor Richard was Benjamin Franklin
Publius was a pen name for Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, when they were writing the Federalist Papers
Richard Bachman is Stephen King
Saki was H. H. Munro
Toni Morrison is Chloe Anthony Wofford
Voltanic was Francis Marie Arouet

You may not be familiar with all of the above-mentioned authors, but were any of them a surprise to you?

Why do authors use pseudonyms? Reasons I have found are varied.

Some writers do not want people knowing that they write in a certain genre, examples being erotica or genres commonly written by men. In the latter case they often use their initials, as in the case of J. K. Rowling.
Some prefer a name that better suits what they write. An example is Pearl Grey who used Zane Grey for his western writing.
Some, an example being Stephen King, are advised by their publishers to use an alternate name so that when they have a few titles released around the same time the public will still buy them.
Many women would use a man’s name because it used to be that women were not accepted as authors. Mary Ann Evans, aka George Eliot, is a good example of this.
Some writers simply want a name that stands out better than their own. There are other reasons, too, but these are the most popular ones.

If you were to use a pen name, have you thought about what it would be?

For what reason would you use a name that is not your own?

If you do use a pen name has it been a positive experience for you?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

What makes you laugh?

I love to laugh.

I love to just throw my head back and laugh out loud, from deep down inside. To giggle uncontrollably can get a little embarrassing, though – ever have that happen? Something struck you so funny that you got an attack of the giggles at not the best moment? Like during the preacher’s message in church? or in a sad situation? or in some other place where laughing is inappropriate? or maybe when you were alone in a crowd somewhere and no one else was laughing – and everyone failing to see the joke looked at you as if you were crazy?

When I was a troubled teenage girl, growing into an equally troubled young woman, I used to look at myself in the mirror and pleadingly pray, “God, please make me pretty and witty.” At the time it seemed to me that the best way for me to be accepted by people was to be pretty and to make people laugh. Well, it seems the Lord answered that prayer of my heart because I can be pretty witty at times. 😉

As I said, I love to laugh. There have been times in my life where laughter was extremely hard to come by, when I wouldn’t laugh for weeks on end. Now that was gloomy. And no fun at all.

Some days laughter is truly the best medicine. I’m sure you have heard about people who were terribly ill with no help in sight until they found things to laugh at which began their healing. Funny movies, funny stories, slapstick humour such as The Three Stooges kind of stuff. Laughter releases endorphins into the brain, and that relieves stress, lowers high blood pressure and .. simply makes you feel better.

What makes you laugh? Is it a good joke? Is it things people do? Is it you yourself that you find the most humour in, maybe things that happened to you or things you said by mistake? (Ever commit a comical faux pas that gets you laughing every time you think of it?)

Or are you someone who just cannot laugh at yourself? Are you too serious — maybe?

What do you find so funny that you have to laugh out loud or burst?

If there a good clean joke or story that you have found to be the funniest you have come across to date – and that you would like to share – I would love to read it, as I’m sure others stopping by would, too. 🙂

Now, having said all that, there are things that do not make me laugh, such as things done at the price of hurting someone else. I like the chance to enjoy a good laugh if it is uplifting and not malicious but true good humour.

A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. – Proverbs 17: 22

Here’s a thought for anyone who might be interested: Ever think about what Jesus was like when here as a man over 2000 years ago? I think He must have enjoyed making people laugh. (Laughter is healing, remember?) Do you think He would have known all the best ‘jokes’? There is no mention in the Bible of Him ever laughing, but would children be comfortable around Him if He were not one to smile and laugh? He was here to open the way out of religious trappings and into relationship with Father God. Would people be drawn to Him the way they were if He were ill-humoured? I think our God has an amazing sense of humour, we just have to look for it. 🙂

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂